Dairy – it was difficult to avoid, but my consumption definitely went down. I didn’t notice any difference in how I felt on an every day basis. But I do notice a HUGE difference in how I feel after eating significant amounts of dairy now. This has also reinforced my opinion that most people’s complaints about lactose intolerance are really just people who haven’t spent a lot of time seriously eating dairy. What’s the long-term impact? Given that I now feel significantly worse when I eat dairy, I may continue to avoid it. However, I seriously miss eating cheese/crackers and ice cream and anything with cream sauces…

White grains – this was just plain hard. I developed a love for farro and ate way too much quinoa. I have not really gotten on board with giving up my white breads and potatoes. There are just so many things I won’t give up eating for this to really have any long-term effect. Any noticeable effects? If anything – I don’t portion control when eating white grains. I can eat a million french fries or goldfish crackers or large amounts of pasta. And that feels terrible as expected. I don’t feel this way about vegetables. So this was mostly a failed experiment. But I have pretty much given up snacking on grains, which is a positive.

Weight – last month I reported a low weight that I’m pretty sure was just an off day. I’m now a few pounds up, which is back to my normal weight.

Starting in May – I’m going to 100% cut out sweets (candy, chocolate, dessert). This seems easy, but I think it’ll be a lot harder than I am expecting. As much as I like salty foods for snacks, I still eat a piece of chocolate or dessert a lot.

People often wonder how I handle traveling every week for work. But it’s easier than you would think. Traveling sucks if you do it rarely. There’s never any perks. You don’t get upgraded. You don’t get priority boarding. You don’t get TSA pre-check. You pay for checking bags. You often have to check your carry-ons at the gate. You pay for extra leg room. You wait in the customer service line for missed connections and canceled flights. I sympathize. That’s why I try to stick with my preferred carrier.

More than that, if you only travel rarely, bad experiences tend to stick in your memory. Only flew twice in the last year and once you got delayed (ps. delays under an hour don’t count)? 50% success rate sucks. In 5 years of traveling, I have only gotten stuck in a connection city 4 times and never had a lost bag. Sure I get delayed a bunch, but not nearly enough for it to annoy me – especially when it’s a weather delay. Who wants to fly through thunderstorms or land in snow storms? One other tip – look out the window next time you’re landing at a major airport and often you’ll see all the planes in the air lining up to try to land. It makes it more understandable if you ever have circled around before landing.

Anyway, after traveling so much, I’ve kept a list in my head of all the airports I like and dislike. It’s here.

It feels like it’s gotten better. But I think it’s mostly due to not thinking quite as hard about it and falling off the wagon quite a bit this past month. See, I started a new work contract in Cedar Rapids, IA. While I have nothing against Iowa in general, it has been pretty tricky trying to avoid grains and dairy and still eat a variety of foods. That being said, the lack of variety has also made my eating somewhat routine – which is supposed to be ideal for dieting. On a regular week, I can stop by Super Target or Hy-vee (I still find it interesting that every city has their own grocery store chain) to pick up lunch and snacks for the week.

Lunch: frozen meals; most often Amy’s and Kashi because they offer lots of protein, interesting grains and I can recognize all their ingredients. Portion control is still my biggest enemy. So while frozen entrees aren’t the best, they work pretty well for me. Also, they’re warm, which is key when it’s freezing cold outside. Maybe salad will make it back into the rotation once it’s spring.

Snacks: berries (raspberries, blueberries, blackberries), pre cut cauliflower/broccoli, sugar snap peas, apples, peanut butter and nuts. Keeping snacks to fruits and veggies is huge to me. Healthy mindless eating. If only these snacks could lean toward salty instead of sweet. I make up for it by having popcorn once a week.

That all is totally within my diet. But of course, I’ve been pretty lax on the weekends. Dumplings, ramen, pasta carbonara, Indian food for dinner, and sandwiches in the airport… At least I have successfully avoided the ice cream and other desserts I am always tempted to buy.

Results: Down 5 lbs!

Possibly just a fluke on the day I weighed myself. This is the lowest weight I’ve been in the last 5 years.

On any normal week, I try to go to a yoga class on Fridays. It’s my day off, so I can go during work hours and classes aren’t usually packed. My work offers a nice fitness reimbursement that can cover the cost. And it helps mix things up for my body so it doesn’t just get used to boring hotel workouts. I’m all about keeping things interesting so my body doesn’t adjust to just one kind of exercise. And yoga adds in the stretching and strength training that I’m sorely missing when I work out on my own.

For the past year I’ve been really lucky. I found a studio close to my house. They offer classes during work hours for $10, which is awesome. The class I like to attend on Fridays is a Vinyasa class for all levels. It was always really small (usually less than 10 people). My teacher was really good at instructions and modifications. And the studio has rope walls, which I’d never used before but are pretty awesome.

Then, over the holidays, the studio had a fire. And it unfortunately seems like they will not be reopening any time soon. Which means I’ve been on the market for a new class. And let me tell you – it is hard to find. It was just dumb luck that I stumbled upon my previous studio and it was awesome. But because yoga practice can vary so much, it actually takes a lot of effort to find one you like.

My requirements? No chanting, no music, no philosophy, no meditation. No fashion, no lifestyle, no crunchiness. I’m not into hot yoga. I’m not into slow yoga. I’m not into yoga that’s $20 a class. Class has to be on Fridays, ideally in the morning. Also ideally, near my house. After writing it all down, I realize that’s a lot of restrictions. No wonder it’s so hard. But I am looking for yoga to be a workout, not a way of life. The newest place I’ve found is close to home, on Fridays and has just a little bit of philosophy thrown in. But it’ll do for class once a week.

I’m counting this as the end of the first month of my no dairy/no white grain diet. This kind of cheating (since I didn’t really start at the beginning of January) is pretty much the theme of my whole month – you’ll see. I have lots of thoughts.

In a nutshell: it totally sucks.

Here’s the thing – it’s hard to change eating habits. And it’s hard in an unimaginable, un-talked about way. I’m pretty sure everyone can imagine the difficulty of running X miles or trying a crossfit class or exercising an hour every day. That physical effort and preparation is something people get without actually doing it.

But eating? Even for me, and I eat pretty healthy to start. It’s hard to imagine how much time you suddenly have to spend determining what you can eat. How much you should eat. When you should eat. What to do when you go out to eat. And that’s just logistics of getting food without too much disruption to your normal life. Then there are tons of small parts that pop up – how do you get the same satisfaction from eating? How do you kick any food habits and traditions? What do you do when you realize all the times you mindlessly snack?

Essentially, I cheated probably every day. Morning coffee with milk. A piece of chocolate in the afternoon. A salad that had cheese in it. French fries because I love potatoes. Ramen because I got sick. Pizza because it was the Superbowl. But besides all that, I have been eating a lot more vegetables. And quinoa. And I did give up my morning latte for regular coffee (or soy lattes, but it’s not the same).

Results: unmeasured.

I didn’t do before pictures or measurements. The number on the scale hasn’t changed. I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m eating more sugar in a way to compensate for what I feel like I’m missing. The amount of effort I’m spending when traveling to find things to eat is ridiculous. My portion control is getting better which has led to fewer energy level spikes and crashes. However, I have to be more conscious of when and how much I eat in order to keep energy levels at a regular level.

All this could be partially due to the fact that I’ve also been working out like crazy. So it’s a bit unclear what are diet effects and what are exercise effects.

There seems to be a lot of news about how the flu season this year has been pretty bad. Good thing I got my flu shot!

Thing is, the only reason I got a shot was because the hospital made me (under threat of termination). Then they made it really easy by sending people to the office to give us flu shots. But with this approach, they vaccinated 99% of their 15,000 employees. That’s incredibly awesome. I wish all large companies did this.

But I have to admit that I never go out of my way to get a flu shot every year. If it’s easily available, then sure – why not? If I have to go somewhere to get one – eh, I have a lot of faith in my immune system. I have a very selfish perspective on vaccines. That is terrible thinking. While I might not be prone to getting sick or be in a high risk population, germs find a way of getting around. My vaccination helps protect the other people around me. That’s really why everyone should get their flu shot.